Just under one month since Apple Music's 90-day free trials began ending, the service has 6.5 million paid subscribers, Apple CEO Tim Cook said Monday at the WSJD conference hosted by The Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, 8.5 million people are still in the free-trial phase, meaning about 15 million people are using the music-streaming service.
This is the first time we've heard the number of paid subscribers. It is also an increase from the 11 million trial subscribers Apple announced in early August.
Spotify, on the other hand, hit 20 million paying users back in June, with over 75 million active users. Because Apple offers only a paid service — it's $9.99 per month or $14.99 for a family plan — it's that 20 million that Apple is more interested in beating.
"The runway here is really good," Cook said.
When talking about what he loved about Apple Music, Cook said it "brings the art back to music."
"The guy that's singing outside on the street isn't being discovered anymore, or the guy in the bar that you went to," he said, adding that Apple Music was trying to change that:
"Personally, I'm discovering a whole lot more music than I was before."
Cook declined to shed light on the number of smartwatches sold by Apple.
"We announce more numbers than any company alive," he said. "But on the watch … we're looking at this and saying, this is competitive information."
